Free fibre to all of Andorra'n households - providing they spend at least €5 per mth

probe

A friend of mine whose parents have a regular telephone line, and don’t use the internet, told me that their telco is visiting them to install fibre to replace their copper connection. They get their TV from DTT. They don’t use the internet. They pay about €5 per month for a phone line, and live in a remote tobacco farm about 2,000 meters up in a mountain, 9km from the nearest village. They will be plugging their old analog phone into a fibre box next week.

Andorra Telecom has installed fibre in about 75%, and their target to is install 100% fibre to the country by the end of 2010.

Their fibre service provides 100 Mbits/sec internet and hundreds of TV channels as well as phone. It is obviously cheaper for them to move everybody to fibre, and dump 20 year old digital phone exchanges and copper wiring plant which is perhaps 40 or more years old. Far cheaper to maintain fibre compared with cables and telephone exchanges. No problem with water leaks, or bad weather – Andorran temperatures can vary from -20C or worse in winter to +40C or greater in August. It rains heavily in the mountains.

If these old fuddies decide to subscribe to cable TV to watch Avatar via fibre (which is available as VoD) or use the internet, no expensive truck-roll will be involved….. they just plug the equipment in themselves.

Fibre is the only option available to consumers in Andorra. The cheapest option for the provider. The best option for the subscriber.

http://www.sta.ad/ftth/index.html

watty

Andorra Population 83,888, similar to Limerick City.

However it gets more tourists than All of Ireland. 10.2 million every year. Maybe the Tourists are funding it.

We could have had Fibre to every household by now. It would cost much less than NAMA or the N7 Portliose to Limerick upgrade.

The TV aspect is irrelevent. VOD Avatar (or any film) right after release will be more expensive than buying a DVD, which is why they are doing VOD releases before DVD releases.

Loads of places apart from Ireland are doing major fibre rollouts. That's why the LLU process, GLUMP, splitting eircom to Wholesale and retail companies or even survival of eircom is all irrelevent. If there is wayleave on ESB & eircom poles and on all ducting, water mains and sewers for fibre, then fibre to all is cheaper if eircom doesn't do it.

I'm not sure what your point is, Probe. We know we have highest phone line rental in world. That is why 1/3rd of people don't have a phone line at all. A high percentage of those with phone line get it free via Social Welfare. Apparently only about 10% realise that the allowance can be spent on Mobile. If the Government takes notice they will cut allowance to €15 (50min + 50 texts Mobile) Rather than €26 for Line Rental alone from eircom.

Probably Liechtenstein will give everyone free fibre. Population 35,000.
Liechtenstein is one of the few countries in the world with more registered companies than citizens.

The likes of Liechtenstein, Ukraine, Andorra and Slovakia are ahead of the UK in the rankings, which have been topped by South Korea's average download connection of 34.19Mbps.

In addition, the UK was found to have an average broadband upload speed of 0.91Mbps, which is well below the figure of 18.45Mbps available in South Korea.

http://www.cable.co.uk/news/study-hints-at-uks-need-for-fibre-optic-broadband-19803458/

Freddie59

watty wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is, Probe.

He's been fairly active in THIS THREAD Watty.;)

probe

watty wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is, Probe. We know we have highest phone line rental in world.

My point is that fibre is cheap to maintain, and makes copper (and wireless) obsolete when universally installed in a country.

While Andorra may be a small country, the phone company is equally small. It is a rural country with agricultural and other properties spread all over the place.

Switched telephony is obsolete in an IP world. There is no point in keeping multiple networks and systems running.

Logically it is better to go for 100% fibre, and make it open to multiple service providers on a competitive basis, compared with having each supplier run their own networks - all of which will be half-baked.

Making fibre available to everyone makes the cost per household served affordable. Even if the end user in question only requires a PSTN connection.

probe

Freddie59 wrote: »

He's been fairly active in THIS THREAD Watty.;)

Boards.ie - a website closed to innovation and innovative ideas, controlled by industry insiders. Much like the property industry in Ireland. Witness the mess the country is in now....

jor el

probe wrote: »

Boards.ie - a website closed to innovation and innovative ideas, controlled by industry insiders.

If that's the case, then why are you still here? Your trolling has gone on long enough.